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Introducing 'Rabbis Uncensored'

Welcome to "Rabbis Uncensored," the Jewish Exponent's newest blog where you will find stimulating discussion of Jewish thought and rabbinic insight into contemporary issues that touch our society both locally and globally.

Several dozen local rabbis have signed on to the venture and will take turns writing about designated topics. Special thanks to our consultants on the project, Rabbi Michael Ross, a Jewish educator, and Rabbi Michael Knopf, the assistant rabbi at Har Zion Temple.

The eve of Passover is a fitting time to launch. Just as we read the Haggadah and draw upon our historic journey from slavery to freedom to find resonance in our lives today, our rabbis will be looking to Jewish tradition as they grapple with issues of the day through their own special lens. For our inaugural posts, we posed this question:

In his book, Exodus and Revolution, Professor Michael Walzer wrote that "pharaonic oppression, deliverance, Sinai, and Canaan are still with us, powerful memories shaping our perceptions of the political world...We still believe, or many of us do, what the Exodus first taught, or what is has commonly been taken to teach, about the meaning and possibility of politics and about its proper form:

—first, that wherever you live, it is probably Egypt;

—second, that there is a better place, a world more attractive, a promised land;

—and third, that “the way to the land is through the wilderness. There is no way to get from here to there except by joining together and marching."

What issue represents today's Egypt, laden with Pharaonic oppression? What would be the promised land?